


by the moonlight

by MathildaHilda



Series: What If; Red Dead Redemption Edition [8]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Low Honor Arthur Morgan, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21733642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathildaHilda/pseuds/MathildaHilda
Summary: He feels cruel.
Relationships: John Marston & Arthur Morgan
Series: What If; Red Dead Redemption Edition [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1368700
Kudos: 18





	by the moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> Title from;  
> In the evening by the moonlight - Bing Crosby

He thought he’d been prepared for it, right after Ross’d said it, and he’d taken the journey further down South to put an end to whatever twisted game the government had, yet again, stirred up.

The West is dead, nothing left but ghosts and coyotes, but the ghosts still have their guns, and the coyotes their teeth, so, maybe, he shouldn’t be too surprised over any of this.

The West is dead, it just doesn’t know it yet.

He thought he’d been prepared, but it’s just one of those lies one tells themselves when the world is dark and has backed you into a corner once you’ve stopped lashing out at it, angry over things you have no control over.

He’s not prepared for it, no matter what he tells himself, and he’s thanked however set this up, that perhaps Abigail doesn’t know yet. He thanks something he doesn’t quite believe in, for making sure Jack is far too young to have remembered much of anything of what once was, and now only remained with those few chosen souls who have to live with it.

He cleans his gun, readies it with the bullets and wipes the sweat from his forehead when the midday sun becomes far too hot. Before Javier, after Bill, and so very long before Dutch.

It’s barely a mile to the farm from his position, but he is, surprisingly, in no hurry to get there any faster than his current speed. He tries to breathe, in and out, calm and steady, but one is rarely prepared to meet the Ghosts of Lives Past, no matter how long ago it was that the ghosts disappeared.

In the end, neither man was as good as they’d thought themselves to be. Or, they had always known, but decided against judging themselves until another did it for them. Neither man was a good man, few men make good decisions, but even fewer men actually live up to those decisions made.

(Money be damned, it didn’t get him out of the situation until it was far too late for either party.)

Micah has long since rotten, four years seemingly forever ago, and Bill has just started. Most others are gone, others safely tucked away, and others are under so much surveillance, it would seem impossible for anything past a flea to sneak through the cracks of it.

The lanterns are lit, tiny flames dancing in the light breeze of nightfall, and it does fill him with the calm feeling of home.

The homestead is small and modest, propped up against a rapidly darkening, azure sky, trapped behind cacti and desert roses known only here. The barn is a little lopsided, the pasture and crops a little dry, the animals a little too small around the hips but not altogether too much to notice. Men, six of them, laughs around a fire lit beside the homestead, an equal amount of horses tied to the posts at the front of the house.

It almost looks as if though it could’ve been twelve years ago again. Different men, different setting, but all in all, it’s much the same. One remains the same, the other, mostly faceless strangers.

They could’ve been a gaggle of bandits, what with their neckerchiefs pulled up over the noses and removed only to drink the flask that’s being passed around the fire. The people he’d spoken to had known what he’d meant almost immediately, the sick men in masks hiding outside town limits to keep the amount of sickness on an acceptable level.

The sick, kind, strange men who had little to say about anything and nothing to do with anything, but who might certainly have done something bad to warrant such a disease and such a man after themselves.

Truth be told, he’s only here for one of them, but he never said so to anyone who willingly listened to the whole tale. They weren’t bad men, it was explained, they were just strange, and everyone were, at some point, vary of them.

(Each to their own, he thinks.)

He’s easy to spot, seated to the side, leaned against a log rather than positioned on top of it, eyes crinkling at the edges when he smiles beneath the mask. He laughs at something, bends forward and passes the flask forward while he coughs up half a lung. It has a domino effect, because soon enough, they’re all coughing and laughing in chorus.

He feels cruel.

He halts the horse for a moment, the mare trampling uneasily when faced with the prickly leaves of cacti, and throws her head once for good measure. She makes a sound, and he darts back down the small hillside, trying so desperately to escape the eyes that no doubt searches for the source of it.

He doesn’t stop until he’s reached a peak that faces back out, toward the homestead he just left, and he leans against the horn of the saddle in an attempt to catch his breath. The horse is still uneasy, but quieter now, and holds a hand against her neck, if only for some confirmation that it was all real. He takes out his own flask, drains the contents, and waits for the night.

He doesn’t have to wait long, it seems, because night has barely come, and he can already hear the deft fallings of hoofs against dry dirt. He swings his horse around, hand on gun, when the masked man he’s been in search of, comes into view.

“Thought it was you.” He says, gravely and almost distant. Muffled by the mask still around his face.

“Thought you was dead.” He replies, almost releasing his grip on the gun. “So did I.” He mutters. He pulls the mask away from his face.

He’s sunburned, even in the dark, and has grown quite the beard in their time apart. Gaunt cheeks, no real brightness to the eyes. Neither man says anything for a while.

The silence carries enough of the words left unspoken.

“How’ve you been, then? Been a while.” Arthur says, eventually, and John has to clear his throat before he can find the energy to speak. “Fine.”

“Apart from the government agents? Word gets around, even this far outta town.” He says it so easily, so without question. Another day in the life of a dead man.

“They got Abigail and Jack.” He says, and Arthur finally meets his eyes. If there was anything that damned man ever cared about, then it was those two.

(Perhaps he did care about John, just enough to get him out, and perhaps he even cared enough about Sadie to keep them both at armlength, given that that was distance anyone was ever allowed when it came down to it.

Perhaps he cared enough for being who he was. John just weren’t sure if he ever cared _enough_.)

Arthur opens his mouth for a response. “I don’t want your pity, Arthur. It’s already done.”

“Is it? ‘Cause from where I’m standing it looks like I’m still alive. Feels just the same too.” He says, low and rumbling, same as always.

“All you got outta all your complaining, was Micah’s head on a platter and an express ticket right out into the middle of nowhere.”

“Ain’t just lookin’ for you.”

“I know, you could hear the bullet you served Bill right on over here.”

“It weren’t in the papers.” John says.

“The distance from which a shot makes a sound rarely ever is.”

John knows what this is. This tactic of Arthur’s. Always been his little trick into making John do exactly what he wants him to do. But, whether that includes shooting him or making him do some other dumb thing remains to be proved.

Rile John up, and, eventually, you’ll get pretty much exactly what you want.

“What happened? After you left me up there?”

“Didn’t leave ya, only sought other opportunities.”

“Prayin’ for ‘em, more like.” John says. “Opportunities for an already dead man to perhaps do _some_ good in the time he’s got left,” Arthur says, cutting off whatever ongoing response John had wished to pursue.

“Micah looked worse for wear. Added to the collection of scars, on your behalf.” It’s a half-smile.

“Thank you kindly, Mister Marston.” Arthur says, half-smile there too, and tips his hat in thanks.

“Anyone reach out to you?” John asks, earning nothing more than a shake of the head in reply. “Heard about ‘em. Nothin’ more.” He scratches at his beard, and John can easily see streaks of gray in the dimming light of day.

“Ain’t much of a surprise someone eventually came lookin’, just hadn’t expected you.” He gives John a wave. “Half of them boys down there are waiting for someone to show up and shoot ‘em in their sleep, but at this point they’re more likely to cough themselves to death than earn a bullet.”

“I’m sorry, Arthur.”

“No, you ain’t. Not this time ‘round. Had I been any other kind of man, perhaps you woulda been, but I ain’t, and you ain’t. We ain’t never been good people much, but at least you made somethin’ out of it. I didn’t.”

“Besides, a bullet in the head woulda been nice all them years ago, while all I got was a knife in the back.”

John does look at him then, nightfall be damned, and sees little remorse, and all the more bemusement. Strange mix, he decides. Even stranger still, he decides, once Arthur doesn’t draw a gun on him.

“This is on Dutch.” John decides, urging his horse forward with a few inches, closing the space between them.

“Don’t matter now, does it? Seems to me to be more of everyone’s fault rather than one person’s.” Deflecting; Arthur Morgan’s specialty when he didn’t seem to have much of an opinion.

“Alright, then it don’t matter whose fault it is, but everyone of our decisions brought us to where we are right now. All of _Dutch’s_ decisions.”

Arthur doesn’t seem to have a reply to that, only the snort of a laugh.

“Go get your family back, Marston.”

Perhaps it’s hours. Perhaps it’s minutes. Time doesn’t really matter.

After all, the West has all but died away.


End file.
